My son is 20 months old and is very unconfident in social situations. If he meets other adults or children he gets so visibly uncomfortable and shy, and will always cry if anyone apart from me or DH attempts to touch him.
This morning we got chatting to another mum with an older child on the train. The older child was really friendly and kept touching my son on the arm and hand. He burst into tears and the other child was then saying to her mum that she felt bad as she’d made my son cry. I then felt awful myself as I didn’t want the other child to think that she was in any way responsible! I also felt guilty that we’d left another mum with the problem of explaining that to her child.
I’m now in a catch 22 where I want my son to interact more to try and help his shyness, but am also really worried about upsetting other kids and making them feel like they’re to blame. It’s also really tiring to keep explaining to adults when he starts crying that he’s just not very comfortable in social situations.
I know how debilitating shyness can be and feel so sad that my lovely boy could find himself really held back by this. I see other children happily having cuddles with friends and family members other than their parents and really wish my son was able to do that too.
Our social situations are limited as I’m a SAHM (we can’t afford childcare or nursery). We do go to a few groups every week where he does interact a bit with other children and he goes to the park a lot.
Is he going to struggle with this for the long term and is there anything I can do to help him?!